Thanks to Google Code Next, I had a great weekend working with high schoolers & a group of fine evangelists “hacking” around 🦾. It’s fun & even fulfilling to coach them went through a full cycle from ideation with crazy 8 & storyboarding, prototyping to pitching in less than 3 days. As we worked great virtually together, I caught a glimpse of the future of work in a better way across the country. But why confines in a country, the world can be your playground if you default to open. There is defiantly no going back to good pre-COVID days. Instead, these young venturers are changing full speed forward & their days ahead will be great for sure. Go team 5 😉.
Democratizing CS education first
“If equality of educational opportunity can be established, democracy will be real and justified.” — Will Durant, The Lessons of History
Silicon Valley could definitely do better on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) for sure. Speaking from my personal experience to recruit in Silicon Valley for years, the top problem has always been the talent pipeline is not diverse enough. It is just a consequence of education. To fix that, someone better fixes the upstream.
Therefore, I always try to help Code Next efforts because the calling is to cultivate the next generation of Black, Latinx, and Native tech leaders. As much as Android Open Source Program is a book open, many keep asking why it’s still too difficult & requires expensive computers & HW to get started. Therefore this year, I’m trying to kill 2 birds with 1 stone by an experimental course: Android System Development on the Cloud. Hopefully, it helps next generations to development computing system virtually from anywhere and also leveraging the power of cloud computing to scale easier, e.g.
- Creating the magic at the intersection points of HW, SW & Services likes Apple. According to Jobs, that’s more difficult for others to catch up.
- As AI technologies are rapidly transforming Software-Defined, new startups may move faster when they can reimagine the full-stack from the client, edge to server computing to innovate on the critical levers.
- While most device wall gardens are out of reach for the general public, Android Open Source Program allows us to level the playing field for all without permission.
I know a few great “role models” eager to inspire more underprivileged students. So do let me know if you plan to get started by hosting an ASD on the Cloud workshop for your communities.
Endless frontier
“SW is an endless frontier. There is no limited, except being able to write SW itself. So once you figure out how to write a piece of code, you could do almost anything. For me, that means unending opportunities for people in computer science…” — Vint Cerf, an Internet pioneer on DG Early-Morning Show
In No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention SW, Reed Hastings, the Netflix founder shares “stunning colleagues” are the key reason for a fast & innovative workplace. They are highly talented with diverse backgrounds & perspectives, who can collaborate effectively. He shares Netflix pays 10 times better than average because of the “rock-star principle”. This is based on the study showing the top programmer is 20 times faster at coding, 25 times faster at debugging, and 10 times faster at program execution than the last one on marks.
To be fair, those numbers are under control conditions for standard tasks. The real work is much complex. Also, innovation is a messy business. But it does hit 2 key points.
- The dynamic range of SW is much higher than HW. That’s why the industry is increasingly adopting Software-defined on top of generic computing HW.
- SW development is a highly creative process where “Imagination is more important than knowledge”. It’ll be very challenging, and that’s why it’s fun 🤔.
So, what are you waiting for?
Full Disclosure
The opinions stated here are my own, not those of my company. They are mostly extrapolations from public information. I don’t have insider knowledge of those companies, nor a whatever expert.
